Tires: Load Index, load index, gawr

Question
Barry,

I am looking at some tires with a Load index of 96, which are rated at 1,565 pounds if I'm not mistaken. My car is a 2006 Honda Accord EX V6 manual, with a front GAWR of apprx. 2300 lbs and rear GAWR of apprx 2000 lbs, total GVWR 4300 lbs. My question is, can a tire with a load index of 96 handle this weight? If not, how do I judge/calculate how high of a load index tire I should buy?
(The tire I'm looking at getting is the Falken Ziex ZE329) I'm a spirited driver, so if you have any ideas on a tire, I'm open to hear it as well. Thank you incredibly Barry.

Cheers,
Jonathan

Answer
Jonathon,

This first step is to check your vehicle placard.  It lists the original tire size and the proper pressure for that size.  The placard is usually located on a doorpost or in the glove box – but sometimes it is located in the trunk or on the fuel filler door.

Hopefully, that placard will also have the load index.  As you will probably noticed, the load carrying capacity of the tire is much larger than the GAWR's.  That is because of an engineering principle I like to call "Over-design / Under-utilize".  In other words, you need to select components that are stronger than the minimum.  Vehicle engineers do this as part of their standard procedure - and that includes tires.

So if the original tires have a load index of 96 or smaller, that would be what the vehicle engineers did for your vehicle - and I think it would be wise to follow that.